Worst traffic bottlenecks in the county?

For the third year in a row, SR-78 east at Barham Drive tops the list

Video wall in the San Diego Transportation Management Center (TMC) where real time information is gathered from a variety of sources such as electronic sensors in the pavement, freeway call boxes, video cameras, 911 calls, officers on patrol, Caltrans highway crews, ramp meter sensors, earthquake monitors, motorist cellular calls, and commercial traffic reporters, which is sent to the TMC 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
— John R. McCutchen / UT San Diego

Video wall in the San Diego Transportation Management Center (TMC) where real time information is gathered from a variety of sources such as electronic sensors in the pavement, freeway call boxes, video cameras, 911 calls, officers on patrol, Caltrans highway crews, ramp meter sensors, earthquake monitors, motorist cellular calls, and commercial traffic reporters, which is sent to the TMC 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
— John R. McCutchen / UT San Diego

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1. State Route 78 at Barham Drive

Three years at No. 1, but its reign is almost over. By the end of 2012, nearly $40 million in construction projects should bring congestion relief. Bottleneck appears on 98 percent of work days.

2. Interstate 805 at Clairemont Mesa Boulevard

Northbound, morning

Steadily rising from No. 5 since 2008 — a Barham Bottleneck in the making? No current plans for relief. The good news is, once you’re past it, traffic sails along toward the I-5/I-805 merge.

3. Interstate 5 at Lomas Santa Fe

Northbound, afternoon

This slowdown fell off the list last year, after HOV lanes from the Merge to Solana Beach opened up. Now it is back. The start of the I-5 expansion project is still several years away.

4. Interstate 15 at 9th Avenue

Southbound, morning

Gone. With the opening of the 20-mile I-15 Express Lanes project, this Escondido backup dropped to No. 24 in January as North County commuters figure out how best to use the new lanes.

5. Interstate 805 at Nobel Drive

Southbound, afternoon

Post- Split headache for years is overdue for relief. Bottlenecks on 98.4 percent of workdays. La Jolla Village Drive cloverleaf work, Carroll Canyon Road extension under I-805 may help a little.

What’s the worst traffic bottleneck in all of San Diego County? The one you get stuck in during your daily commute, of course.

Still, some are worse than others. That’s what U-T San Diego shows with its fourth annual list of the 10 worst bottlenecks on local highways.

The list is derived from a compilation of data by the U-T with the help of a traffic engineer. There are some new ones on the list while a few all-too-familiar hot spots have dropped off.

The survey relied on the Caltrans Performance Monitoring System which uses a variety of sensor tools to monitor traffic on 1,250 miles of roadway in the county.

For purposes of its database, Caltrans defines a bottleneck as “a regularly occurring delay at a specific location due mostly to problems in the roadway design or cars entering the flow of traffic.” Sound familiar?

Significant drops in speed between detectors embedded in the road — at least 20 mph and to a speed of less than 40 mph — trigger a bottleneck flag.

The system lists how many days in a year a delay occurs, its average length, the cumulative time lost by commuters (called vehicle hours) and the number of minutes chewed up in a delay.

With guidance from associate traffic engineer Tiffany Barkley of Berkeley Transportation Systems, which created the Caltrans database program, the U-T used the cumulative figure as the key measurement. It seemed that “vehicle hours” are most representative of the collective frustration and the shared pain when stuck in traffic.

The survey was culled from data on morning and evening commutes, Monday through Friday excluding holidays, from Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2011. As the program calculated the top 10, a spot that has become the bane of evening commuters in North County emerged at the top.

6. State Road 56 at Carmel Country Road

Eastbound, afternoon

The cause? “Not much storage” for traffic exiting I-5 and headed for the heavily residential cross streets. It quickly grinds to a halt and crawls on 86 percent of work days. No relief ahead.

7. Interstate 805 at Sorrento Valley Road

Southbound, afternoon

This bottleneck drops from No. 4. But it almost connects with the Nobel Drive jam up.

8. State Route 163 at Robinson Avenue

Southbound, afternoon

A “funnel point,” as traffic squeezes down from four lanes to two, with more piling on from side streets in Balboa Park. It’s an old highway in a historic park with no wiggle room.

9. State Route 163 at Robinson Avenue

Northbound, afternoon

Misery loves company in Balboa Park. Traffic is stopped in the other direction, too. Vehicles pour in from Downtown, I-5 and Hillcrest until capacity maxes out. The view, at least, is calming.

10. Interstate 5 just below Birmingham Drive

Southbound, morning

No physical reason for this slowdown at the scenic vista parking lot near Cardiff. No squeeze, no sharp curve. Just a downhill with lots of cars in front of you. Part of I-5 expansion, still years out.

“Barham,” Barkley said. “Looks like we may have a winner.”

For the third year running, State Route 78 eastbound at Barham Drive reigned supreme at No. 1.

Using the criteria of vehicle-hours consumed, there was nothing close. The bottleneck appeared a whopping 98 percent of all working days — over 245 out of a possible 250 working days in 2011. The Barham Blockade chewed up 354,967 vehicle-hours. That equals 40.5 years of idling in 2011 that commuters won’t get back.

In a distant second place was the morning commute on Interstate 805 north at Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. Over 229 work days, commuters consumed 199,678 vehicle-hours, stuck in the Clairemont Crawl.

According to Barkley, if a bottleneck occurs on more than half the work days in a calendar year, it is a real problem. Looking over the U-T list, she concluded, “This is a pretty clear Top 10.”

Indeed, every bottleneck exceeded the 125-day threshold. And all had accumulated vehicle hours in six-figures — except No. 10, the morning backup on Interstate 5 south, just south of Birmingham Drive in Cardiff.

Three bottlenecks from 2010 that didn't make the cut:

Evening commute on I-5 northbound at Via de la Valle in Del Mar was No. 1 in 2008 and is now off the list, thanks to the extension of the car-pool lane past Solana Beach.

Evening commute on I-15 north at Citracado Parkway in Escondido was Number 2 in 2010. The opening of the I-15 Express Lanes removes it this year.

In El Cajon, the intersection of I-8 east with 2nd Street was No. 9 and it simply got pushed off the list by bigger bottlenecks.